Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
Voice of America is funded by the US Federal Government and content it
exclusively produces is in the public domain.
April 20, 2007

Virginia Holds Day of Mourning to Honor Victims of University
-------------------------------------------------------------
Shootings
---------

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=17245FE:A6F02AD83191E16041A26EA6138069B99574F7DCC14957C0 Governor Timothy
Kaine asked people across entire state of Virginia to pause at noon
for moment of silence





Flowers and beads grace one of the 33 stones placed near a makeshift
memorial in front of Burruss Hall on the campus of Virginia Tech in
Blacksburg, Va., 20 Apr 2007The eastern U.S. state of Virginia is
observing a day of mourning Friday to honor the 32 victims of a
suicidal gunman's rampage at Virginia Tech university earlier this
week.

State Governor Timothy Kaine declared the day of mourning and asked
people across the entire state to pause at noon (1600 UTC) for a
moment of silence.

Kaine formed an independent panel to investigate Monday's rampage in
Blacksburg, Virginia, by 23-year-old student Cho Seung-hui.

The governor says the panel will probe all aspects of the attack,
including the response time of police and emergency medical
responders.







Cho Seoung-hui It also will look at whether school officials and
authorities could have done more to help Cho once they became aware of
his mental health problems.

Cho was briefly committed to a private mental health facility in
December 2005, after he was investigated for allegedly stalking two
female students.

In his rampage Monday, he killed two people in a dormitory, then
gunned down 30 more people in a classroom building, before killing
himself.

In the two hours between the dormitory and classroom shootings, he
mailed a package to NBC news that included a video rant and photos of
him posing with guns.

His video tirade was rambling, incoherent, angry and at times profane.

NBC News aired the images after turning over the material to law
enforcement officials.

But Peter Read, the father of one of the victims has pleaded with the
media to stop showing the images. The superintendent of the Virginia
state police, Steve Flaherty, told a news conference that he was
disappointed that the media decided to air the video.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.


.